Your friendly neighborhood Artificer! (3.5)

[zarg43]

Greetings and salutations GItPG!

Recently I've started running with a group of guys and I finally got to break out one of my oldest character ideas. I'm really happy to be able to as I've had this idea benched for a couple of years. So as the title says I'm playing a Artificer.

Now the group composition is currently a Human Cleric (of St. Cuthbert so law, justice, and all that jaz. He likes to summon things and use save or dies/suck), a Asherati Wizard (Sandstorm book, needs some reliable damage, because he blows his load then kinda shrugs in combat), and a Halfling Spymaster(I already have a Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis lined up for him, but I need some more). I want them to feel awesome and have a good time for their first real "long haul" DnD group. The current level is about 6 overall (we had one death already due to Gold, Platinum, and Adamant horror(s) 6d6-12d6 lighting damage. Needless to say the DM quickly realized how brutally under prepared for this encounter we where and quickly Deus Ex Machina'd us to safety).

My question is "What would be some cool magic items I should make them so they feel powerful and have fun with their characters? What other cool tips and tricks I might to bring up with them?"

[Waker]

In the case of both the wizard and cleric, crafting some wands and later rods and staffs will be useful for improving their spellcasting. The spymaster could probably benefit from some armor and weapon crystals. Some enchantments on the weapons that he might like are eager and morphic, as well as a hat of disguise if he doesn't already have one.

[Waspinator]

It might be a bit before you can afford a lot of them, but the wizard would probably like some runestaffs.

And yeah, weapon crystals are probably worth looking into.

[mattie_p]

I realize you have a craft reserve, but you still might want to make a few talismans of transference, just in case.

[Waspinator]

Oh, and this is more build advice than item advice, but if the wizard is feeling useless after running out of spells they should consider a reserve feat like Acidic Splatter, Fiery Burst, or Storm Bolt. Then they can do some blasting as long as they save a spell slot to power it.

[zarg43]

Thanks all for the help, and the reserve feats will really help the Wizard out.

[Kristofthegreat]

I actually just started playing an Artificer a couple of months ago in a campaign that we started over a year ago and are now at 15th level (up from our 5th level start).

I'm finding that a few homebrew items along with a Magic Item Compendium and the online SRD are very much my friends.

One item that I'd highly recommend for wizard / intelligence types is a Headband of Intellect; I recently upgraded mine from a +4 to a +6 Intelligent item, and it's great; it's now telepathic, can use my other items' special abilities, and heal me. It's great :smallsmile:

[Sith_Happens]

Darn, here I was hoping for a thread about using an Artificer chassis to mimic Spiderman.:smallfrown:

[Waspinator]

Minor Schemas are also a nice way for spellcasters to get more spells per day.

[Monticularis]

If the wizard is running out of spells quickly, consider crafting a few pearls of power and hand it to the wizard once he runs out of spells. As a bonus, you can lend them to the cleric as well.

According to an errata, the artificer's scrolls are neither arcane nor divine to prevent wizards and archivists from copying them into their spellbook. If you can get your DM to waive that requirement, you can craft some scrolls for the cleric and wizards to use (maybe the wizard more so since he seems to run out of spells quickly). Failing that, you can lend it to the rogue if he has a decent UMD. Of course, you can use them yourself, but if you want to stay on the support side, it might be best to let others do the work and look awesome.

[Waspinator]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of that scroll rule. It really makes no sense, since items made by an artificer are otherwise identical to ones made by spellcasters.

But let's see, ways of getting more spells....

1: The reserve feat thing I mentioned. Plus if you're paranoid about undead, you can use unlimited mini-fireballs to destroy the bodies of everything you kill.

2: Headband of Intellect and/or Periapt of Wisdom for stat buffs.

3: Pearl of Power

4: Minor Schema (Magic of Eberron)

5: Eternal Wands

6: Rings of Spell Storing

7: Metamagic Rods - they don't increase spells per day, but they do save you from having to use higher level slots for metamagic

Something else I noticed while looking at items: a Blessed Book might be nice for the wizard.